Well, I'm waving goodbye to Canon and embracing Olympus again in the shape of a black OM-D E-M5. The only "gotcha" is the shipment date as I've indicated that I'll cancel the order if they, Park Cameras, can't get the camera to me in time to qualify for the free grip promotion which requires the paperwork to be submitted by May 31st. I'm still committed to the camera but the initial price won't drop for a few months so that free grip promotion oils the wheels, so to speak.

Being a new kid on the block in micro four-thirds world I thought I'd share my choice of lenses and ask for feedback.

M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro - announced but not shipping yet. If I need a macro lens...

M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 75-300mm f/4.8-6 - only if I want even more reach in the future

The elephant in the room is the Panasonic 14-150mm f3.5-5.6 Leica D Vario Elmarit Four Thirds Lens. It is advertised as CDAF compatible and as superzooms go it's about as good as they get but it's very expensive. If I were to go for it then the SUMMILUX 25mm f/1.4 would have to be deferred. Whether that would be a good trade-off is totally down to my own needs so I'm not looking for advice about that but if any forum members have experience with this lens on a m4/3 body I'd be interested to hear about it.

My initial budget is quite a healthy one, as can be seen, as it will be funded from the sale of my Canon kit. The OM-D isn't expected for a few weeks so I've plenty of time to refine my choices. Any thoughts?

While not a major deal to all, it is to some, so be aware the zoom ring directions work differently between Panasonic and Olympus. So if you are considering a lot of zooms, this may be a factor. Of course the powerzooms are not affected by this.

Isn't the 75/1.8 on the long side for portraits? Perhaps consider the existing 45/1.8 instead?

And in case you end up having to delay the 25/1.4 for any reason, there's always the 20/1.7 for some fast-ish standard-ish pancake fun.

Thanks for the wise words. I'm normally only one for pancakes in February and as a result I didn't look at the PhotoZone results for the Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 ASPH closely enough until today. Big mistake as it's real value for money.

I still have a 50mm f/1.4 and a 200mm f/4 which last saw use on my OM-2. Manual focus, of course, but I think it will also behoove me to try those out on the E-M5 and see if the quality on a digital sensor is good enough to affect my m4/3 choices.

Remember I was one of the first to jump on the m4/3 boat getting the E-P1 early on, and once I got the 20/1.7 that never left the camera! I might not be active in it now, but I'm still keeping an eye on things. If it wasn't for my main interest area of wildlife, I think it would be a solid system to build around.

Third vote for the 20mm f1.7 pancake here. Personally, I find the pancake more useful, and if I'm willing to sacrifice size (and AF) for performance, I'd rather go with a Voigtlander (in my case, the 17mm, but there's also the 25mm).

And if budget is an issue (and you're willing to deal with software/firmware lens correction, which you previously said you were), maybe go with the m4/3 Pany 14-140mm instead of the 4/3 14-150mm? I'm happy with the two I have, but I use them more for video than stills.

Basically, I'm thinking, what if you:

Kept the 7-14mm for landscapes.Replaced the 14-42mm with the 20mm f1.7 for walking around.Kept the 12-50mm kit lens.Replaced the 45-175mm (and the above 14-42mm) (and decided to forgo the 14-150mm) with the 14-140mm to have something for telephoto.Replaced the 25mm f1.4 with a Voigtlander (either 17mm or 25mm) f0.95 for extreme lowlight performance. i.e. when the 20mm f1.7 won't cut it.

The M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 EZ will arrive with the camera.

I'm still considering the Panasonic 14-150mm f3.5-5.6 Leica D Vario Elmarit as it may offer better optical sharpness at the telephoto end of the scale than the native m4/3 offerings. It is CDAF compatible, though my guess is that it will still be slow to focus. If I do decide on this lens any new primes will have to wait.

.It was the last thought on my mind! The PhotoZone results belie its superzoom status though. Pretty compact as well though one has to add the length of an adaptor. I've asked Robert White for their best quote as I'm not too keen on buying from Hong Kong.

.I think Gordon owes me a coffee! The Panasonic 14-150mm f3.5-5.6 Leica D Vario Elmarit is now on order from our price partner site B&H. It's one difficult lens to track down over here in Europe. Panasonic in Germany have them on special offer, so special that they'll only sell to customers in Germany or Austria. A number of German resellers advertise them but the ones that take credit cards don't have stock with the others demanding cash (not credit card payment) in advance - fat chance of that happening!!! Anyway, B&H are eminently trustworthy and if they say they have stock then I'm sure they do. They even offer via their website a chance to pay all import duty and tax in advance but I wasn't convinced that a 32% premium was appropriate so I'll take my chances with whatever UPS bill me for.

Anyway, I'm all "lensed up" now with just the, far from cheap, 4/3 to micro 4/3 adaptor to buy - shame I don't have the camera yet!

As I now have my OM-D E-M5 camera, my initial lens choices and adaptors for the legacy lenses I can deploy I thought I'd share. First up here's a comparison of the sizes of my Canon PowerShot G10, the E-M5 plus Lumix 14-42mm lens and my OM-2 plus its 50mm f/1.4 lens:

This isn't some PhotoShop composite - the cameras were physically side by side and the capture was courtesy of my cell phone. Ain't the OM-D E-M5 tiny!!! Now here's the complete lens selection:

From left to right there's a Zuiko 200mm f/4 mounted on an OM to m4/3 adaptor, the 12-50mm kit lens that came with the camera, the Leica 14-150mm mounted on an Olympus 4/3 to m4/3 adaptor, a Mamiya 150mm f/2.8 mounted on a Canon EF adaptor plus an EF to m4/3 adaptor, the Lumix 7-14mm, an OM 50mm f/1.4 and finally a 500mm mirror lens of rather dubious quality! And, of course, I musn't forget to mention the Lumix 14-42mm lens already attached to the E-M5.

I think on grounds of sharpness and/or redundancy some of those lenses will only see use for a bit of fun so here's my core selection:

I've included the 12-50mm kit lens simply because it is weather resistant, like the camera. Finally here are shots of the E-M5 powered up with all the lenses attached except the kit lens - there are zillions of photographs of that combo already on the web! The crops aren't all to scale but hopefully they are good enough to get an idea of the relative sizes

The Leica "super-zoom" might seem an odd choice as you can see but it's not huge, even on the relatively tiny E-M5, it focusses reasonably quickly (it is CDAF compatible) though nowhere near the almost instant response of the 14-42mm and the PhotoZone tests seem to show it performs as well at the telephoto end of the scale as the m4/3 telephoto zooms so I thought I'd grab myself a copy while they are still available. I'm not sure yet just how much use the 50mm f/1.4 will see and it might struggle for sharpness but until I can justify a native m4/3 prime it might be useful.

Aside from my first impression of "Bob, please white balance those pics!" it certainly looks like a little bundle of fun. I haven't looked for a side by side comparison, but estimating from the lens size the E-M5 would be about the same size as the E-P_ series if it wasn't for the hump on the top?